~ Change is Good

Tag Archives: challenges

I got an email today. About a job for which I applied maybe three weeks ago. It was a sort-of writing job. I would be providing content for a sort-of ed tech company. I sent them my resume, along with a super-personalized cover letter, as requested. I spent more time on that cover letter than anyone should ever spend on a cover letter. But they wanted ‘something quirky’. They wanted ‘something humorous’. So I wrote a humorous, quirky cover letter. Because I can do that. I’m actually really good at that. (And I’d include the text of said quirky cover letter here, but it is rather detailed and I’m not trying to out this company.)

Yeah. So. I got a response today, via email. From a nameless person (it was signed ‘Team X’, where x = the name of the company.) They want me to do two writing assignments for them, to their specifications. And by ‘to their specifications’ I mean: these assignments are super specific. After I write and send them, they can absolutely sell them. And they never have to contact me again, nor can I contact them. Great business plan, that.

This is not the first time I’ve been asked to do this by a nameless email account at a giant corporation I-will-not-name (though I will name one: Pearson. It pained me to even apply there, but I need to eat. However, I must say: burn in hell, Pearson.) And so, as any wise job-hunter should do, I’ve started to research each job in scary detail.

In my research today, I learned that this company pays around $10.17 per hour for content creation (Pearson pays $10/hr, if you have a master’s degree. $11 if you have a doctorate. Score!)

Upon learning about the $10.17/hr, I got really, really angry.

I deal with anger by watching old reruns of Friends.

Tonight’s rerun was The One With the List, which mostly deals with Ross and Rachel drama. But the sub plot focuses on Monica, who (in this episode) is recently unemployed. And in this episode, Monica goes on a job interview with a corporation selling ‘Mockolate’–a chocolate substitute (I have no idea if I’m spelling that correctly and refuse to Google it.)

Mockolate is a terrible product. Apparently there is fizzing involved. But still, Monica spends hours crafting Mockolate-based recipes to take in to her second round interview…where she learns that the company has been shut down by the department of health. As it well should be. (Why has no one shut down Pearson?)

Like all good/bad Friends reruns, this makes me wonder. Should I just write for the shitty company that will not value my work and/or will steal from me? Should I just go ahead and make $10/hour despite the fact that my last job paid…a lot more than that? (A LOT MORE. I can’t even type how much more.) Because right now, I’m making zero dollars. Is anything better than nothing? Should I try to make lemonade from lemons? Chocolate mousse from Mockolate?

Despite how happy I look in today’s photo, month three has been the most challenging month so far. So many things happened–I returned from our road trip, prepared for my research trip, and left my home and husband behind for a few weeks to start researching for my book. And, last but not nearly least, all of my friends–and my husband–went back to work.

It’s been a tough month.

But fortunately, even when I’m stressed or sad I’m still learning. Which brings me to my Lessons List ‘o the Month. This month I learned:

I really, really hate leaving my husband.

I’m not as brave as I’d like to think.

Planning a solo trip is one thing; doing it is quite another.

I have a fantastic sense of direction.

I love having a rental car when on vacation.

I can get work done even whilst entertaining others.

There are people on the earth other than my husband that I enjoy traveling with (and that I think can enjoy traveling with me, too!)

Sometimes the things you plan out don’t work out. And it’s ok to change them.

I work better when under a shorter deadline.

Because of the above, all trips from here on out will be no more than ten days in length (with the exception of summer road trips with the husband–those don’t count!)

It’s really freaking hot in central Florida in September.

Even when Disney parks are having ‘low crowd level days’, there are still crowds. And being hot makes it worse.

I will always go home early if given the chance (This is historically true. Please reference Europe trip and Breadloaf!)

All I really want is to be able to earn money doing something I love whilst still being able to travel in the summer with my husband. I don’t need to be the Rick Steves of educational domestic travel.

I have absolutely no idea what that ‘something to earn money’ is going to be. I only know what it’s not going to be. So I guess that’s a start…?

Clearly, all of these lessons are not lessons that I enjoyed learning. But no one ever said this would be easy. Which brings me to the last thing I’ve learned: nothing is easy. It may seem that I’m living a life of leisure, hanging out in the happiest place on earth and smiling in front of the Tower of Terror. Sadly, that’s not true. Everything is hard…but the secret to happiness is finding the kind of difficult that you can deal with. I can deal with this type of difficult.

Is it stressful trying to create something out of nothing? Absolutely. Have I cultivated new stress-induced nightmares? You bet. But it’s still better than 9th period study hall.

The other great thing about this kind of difficult is that I have the ability to change my situation. For example, if it is hot and crowded in a particular park that I’m in, I can change parks (or come home and type up my notes and write a blog post, which is what I’m doing right now.) If I find that I’m running out of steam–and ideas–I can hop on a cheap flight home (which I will be doing on Saturday.) If I get home and realize three months from now that I need more research time, well, it’s another cheap flight back. And if I need money to pay for all of those cheap flights I imagine it won’t be hard to find somewhere that will hire me to do some sort of menial task.

I’ve been ‘not working’ for an entire season now–last day of work was the first day of summer, and autumn begins the day after tomorrow. Here’s to three more seasons of figuring out what I want to do when I grow up–or finding a way to avoid the whole growing up thing all together!

EDIT: I’d like to apologize for the fact that the formatting above is completely screwed up. I just spent fifteen minutes trying to fix it and I simply CAN NOT. Apparently that’s not one of the things I learned this month.

I think I’ve finally put my finger on the source of this feeling of un-ease I’ve been having lately: it’s the fact that no one is telling me what to do anymore. And contrary to what you might think, that’s pretty scary. It hit me as I was going to bed the other night–in a bed in a condo 1,100 miles from my home. I realized that I just decided I was going to do this–and here I am. And really–who does that?

I’ve spent the last four days (and most of today) in the hot Florida sun, taking notes for what will eventually become a book. And while it is true that I found a publisher that is interested, I don’t have a contract (or an editor). And while it is true that I spent months working on the proposal for this book, the reality is that the finished product is going to be quite different from what I imagined back in Pennsylvania in February. And the scariest part of all is that I’m completely in charge of how it turns out. No one is giving me any direction.

I don’t think I realized until right now that I really have spent my whole life being told what to do. I went to school and my teachers told me to do work…and sometimes I did it. My parents told me I was going to college (because they really didn’t like my plan of going to Esalen to learn to be a massage therapist slash Reiki practitioner) so I went to college–and then my professors told me what to do. When I graduated and got a teaching job there were scores of people telling me what to do–school board members, administrators, parents, the state…even other colleagues. To keep my job (and keep peace within it) I did all of those things.

But now I’m completely and totally on my own.

How very, very scary…yet liberating. But mostly scary!

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